Using the online environment in assessment for learning: a case-study of a web-based course in primary care
Jill Russell*, Lewis Elton**, Deborah Swinglehurst***, Trisha Greenhalgh****
*lecturer, **honorary professor of higher education, ***teaching fellow, ****professor of primary care
Department of Primary Care, University College London
Abstract
The development of e-learning has opened up new opportunities for innovation in assessment practices in higher education. This descriptive case study draws upon staff and student experiences of teaching and learning on a web-based Masters programme in primary health care to explore how specific features of the online environment can be exploited to promote assessment as part of learning. It begins by identifying different ways of conceptualising assessment in order to highlight the fundamental value choices facing those developing and delivering assessment systems, and then describes our own approach to assessment. In the second part of the paper we explore two key ways in which the online learning environment enables assessment to contribute to learning - through its potential to support collaborative learning, and through facilitating high quality and quantity feedback. between teachers and students.
Three dichotomies of assessment
positivist - interpretivist
formative – summative
process – product
Use of e-learning in assessment
Integrating assessment and on-line learning
Collaborative learning
High quality and quantity feedback
Critical role of social interaction
Virtual seminar
Peer assessment
Conclusions
It is not easy within traditional universities to make substantial changes in assessment processes. Academic institutions tend to carry on doing things in a particular way because that is the way they have always been done. There exists a general lack of reflection about the assumptions and theoretical perspectives underpinning assessment, resulting in practices that tend to reproduce themselves, resist change and maintain the status quo. The development of e-learning, however, has prompted some fresh thinking within universities about what they are doing and why they are doing it, and thus has opened up new opportunities to reflect upon and innovate with assessment practices.
In this paper we have drawn upon our experience of designing and delivering a web-based Masters course in primary care at UCL to demonstrate how specific features of the online environment can be exploited to promote assessment as part of learning. Specifically, we have illustrated how we integrate assessment with online collaborative learning processes, and the ways in which the online environment enables high quality and quantity feedback between tutors and students.
1
Leeds, 22 –23. 03. 05